Osuustoiminnallisen organisaation kehityksen kytkeytyminen suomalaisen hyvinvointiyhteiskunnan kehitykseen vastuullisuusnäkökulmasta : tapaus OP Ryhmä

Yritysten ja yhteiskunnan välinen suhde on monitahoinen ilmiö, jota voidaan lähestyä lukuisista näkökulmista. Yritykset ovat erottamaton osa yhteiskuntaa, eivät siitä erillisiä. Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelemme suomalaisittain merkittävän osuustoiminnallisen organisaation kehityksen kytkeytymistä hyvinvointiyhteiskunnan kehitykseen vastuullisuuden näkökulmasta. Vastuullisuus sateenvarjokäsitteenä kattaa usein synonyymisesti käytetyt yhteiskuntavastuun ja yritysvastuun käsitteet. Tarkastelumme kohteena on suomalainen osuuskuntamuotoinen finanssialan pankkiorganisaatio, OP Ryhmä. Osuuskuntamuotoisen organisaation on arvopohjansa perusteella lunastettava useita vastuullisuuteen liittyviä odotu…

Mistä on lääkärijohtajat tehty?

Leadership and leadership development have been valuated to be the most important part in reaching the strategic goals of the health care. At this moment when Finland is preparing for an unprecedented reform of the health and social services, the impact of a physician leadership to the health care is probably more important than ever. The aim of this study is also to increase understanding of the physician leadership, the work of physician leader and how Finnish doctors value leadership work nowdays. A qualitative interview study (n = 23) was performed for the chief physicians and the heads of departments in The Central Finland Central Hospital. The study showed that a physician leader is d…

Kuntaorganisaation viranhaltijoiden ja poliitikkojen valmistelutyö fantasiointina

Both the management and decisionmaking in municipal organizations may be characterized as tensional. Previous scholarly work has tried to identify (cf. Haveri, 2010; Luomala, 2003) and solve (Pynnönen, 2015) some of the sources of tensions. In this empirical study we focus on the orientations of political decision-makers and office-holders towards preparation in municipal decision-making in a relatively large municipal organization. According to our findings, both politicians and office-holders resort to the principles of new public management (NPM) including management accounting ratiocentered functional planning, but also to more subjective, value and attitude-based metaphorical symbolic …

To trust or not to trust – a case of Finnish technology industry supply network

Conference paper. Presented in the EIASM 5th Workshop on trust within and between organizations, Jan 28-29, 2010, Madrid, Spain peerReviewed

Management dilemmas in innovative supplier networks

This paper focuses on the challenges in managing innovation within supply networks. We present an empirical study on innovation collaboration between a focal company and its supply network of small and medium sized enterprises. By analysing the case from the viewpoints of the focal company, the suppliers and investors we point out three controversial issues in innovation management within the supply network: intellectual property rights, partnering versus competition, and commitment versus independency. Furthermore, we analyse the suppliers' positions with a purchasing portfolio model and present implications for innovation management practices in supply chains. peerReviewed

Evolution of strategy narration and leadership work in the digital era

This paper examines the evolution of strategy narration, contributing to ongoing discussions in this field. Our empirical data, gathered from a large Finnish co-operative bank, cover three decades. According to our findings, digitalisation has brought about an epoch change in strategy narration, as top management has strongly adopted digital media in their leadership work, which has replaced ‘traditional’ face-to-face strategy meetings and public presentations by gatherings on digital platforms, including webcasting, intranet and Skype. This has brought about a leadership vacuum, and left organisational members long for their superiors to ‘exercise’ some traditional leadership practices, su…

Strategies in transition : the internationalization of Finnish forest industry companies

The aim of the dissertation is to advance our knowledge and understanding related to the internationalization processes of the Finnish forest industry companies by answering the following questions in which, it is considered, the internationalization of business activities plays an important role: how has it been possible for a group of once small companies operating from a small and remote country to rise into such prominent positions within the forest industry internationally? And: by which means have the remaining companies come to be what they are today? The thesis consists of three parts: 1) an introductory essay, laying down the frame of reference of the study, 2) three articles, each…

Antenarratives in Ongoing Strategic Change : Using the Story Index to Capture Daunting and Optimistic Futures

Strategic organizational change is a complex, future-oriented phenomenon that is critical for any organization. Traditional means of inquiry have struggled with the difficulty of capturing the future; thus, the methods for managing things to come remain scarce. In this chapter, we contribute to managing strategic change, and thereby the future of the organization, by developing the Story Index (SIX) method. The method facilitates a better understanding of how organizational change takes shape in the discursive reality before materializing in concrete terms. SIX is an analytical process combining antenarratives and narrative rationality to reveal the emerging meanings and rationales of chang…

Shortcomings of New Public Management Ideology from the Power Perspective : Exploration of Power Relations in a Finnish Municipal Organization

New public management (NPM) is perceived as a method for restoring the effectiveness of municipal organizations. In Finland, it is the main motivator for the reconstruction of municipal and state-driven public sectors. Our article explores the power relations created through implementing the NPM ideology, and how those power relations are constructed and renegotiated between office-holders and politicians in a Finnish municipal organization. We contribute to the NPM literature through an empirical study by introducing forms of power, including previously neglected concealed power. Typically, the informal rules of NPM, the administrative codex, and municipal politics are considered to deline…

Managerial Cognition and Action in the Context of the Forestry Industry

Räätälöidyn koulutuspalvelun kokonaislaatu

Participative Strategic Work

Huono johtaminen lääkärikontekstissa

Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää, millaisia ilmenemismuotoja huono johtaminen saa lääkärikontekstissa. Aineiston keruumenetelmänä käytettiin puolistrukturoitua haastattelua (n=50). Kaikki aineiston informantit ovat lääkäreitä. Tutkimusaineisto analysoitiin sisällönanalyysin avulla, jonka tuloksena syntyi huonon lääkärijohtamisen teemoittelu. Tätä teemajakoa täsmennettiin myös aiemman tutkimuskirjallisuuden avulla.Tutkimuksen tuloksilla toivotaan voitavan kehittää lääkäreiden työhyvinvointia ja lääkärijohtajan työtä terveydenhuollon muuttuvassa toimintaympäristössä siten, että lääkäreillä olisi tehtäväänsä motivoituneita ja tehtävässään viihtyviä lääkäreitä johtajinaan. This study …

Trouble in Paradise: a Case of a Technology Industry Supply Network

The development of value networks is regarded as a necessity for achieving agility in global markets. Nowadays the focal companies often state that they are committing to more in-depth partnerships with selected suppliers, which are given more responsibility over both production and R&D. In this article we study the relationship of one focal company with its suppliers and identify the main concerns regarding governance and cooperation within the studied supply network in relation with the focal company’s strategy to enhance its innovative capabilities and ensure capacity in its supplier network. By analyzing the network relationships from three differing vantage points (the focal company, t…

Ghostbusters! On the Narrative Creation of (Absent) Leader Characters

We seek to “bust out” ghost leaders, narrated leader(ship) characters manifesting leadership influence, to discuss the inherent challenges related to leaderless management. By taking the non-corporeal aspect of leadership into account, we challenge the notion of leaderless management—which we argue has turned out to be more of an inspiring and empowering idea rather than a standing practice. We illustrate, with a Finnish high-tech organization, how organizational members narrate leader characters into existence in the non-corporeal realm during an organizational change to fill the void of a corporeal leader. While organizations may declare themselves to be leaderless, they, in fact, are not…

What's in it for me and you? : Exploring managerial perceptions of employees' work-related social media use

PurposeThis study focuses on managers' perceptions of employees' communicative role in social media, and explores the changes in the contractual nature of employment relations in mediatized workplaces in which the boundaries of professional and private life are becoming more fluid.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach was employed to explore this relatively new phenomenon. The data, comprising 24 interviews with managers responsible for corporate communication and human resources in knowledge-intensive organizations, was thematically analysed.FindingsThe analysis shows that employees' work-related social media use creates new types of exchanges and dependencies between an organi…

Organizational identity construction as a control mechanism

This study examines how identities become constructed and regulated during a strategic organizational change process. Planning and implementing a strategy is a social process, which consists of constructing, delivering, compelling, receiving, resisting and multiple contradicting meanings. The process includes multiple social factors influencing the strategy. The visions, notions, images, conceptions, assumptions and appreciation of members of an organization make the process dynamic and flexible. Thus, the strategy process is also always a matter of organizational change. By participating in the strategy process, the members produce meanings for the process and receive meanings produced som…

The development of mobile banking services in a large Finnish financial organization

The chapter, based on an ongoing qualitative study, provides answers to the following questions: what are the case organizations’ rationales in developing mobile banking services? how are customer perspectives considered in developing them? and what are the implications of digitalization and m-banking for the bank and the client? Based on the findings, m-banking is seen to allow ubiquitous availability and efficiency of service provision, offering a sound rationale for their development. The flipside is that digital and m-banking services dilute the human interaction, which challenges the rationale of improving the customer experience. The service development follows the software industry m…

Just a leader? Leadership work challenges and identity contradiction experienced by Finnish physician leaders.

PurposeThis study seeks to improve the understanding of physician leaders' leadership work challenges.Design/methodology/approachThe subjects of the empirical study were physician leaders (n = 23) in the largest central hospital in Finland.FindingsA total of five largely identity-related, partially paradoxical dilemmas appeared regarding why working as “just a leader” is challenging for physician leaders. First, the dilemma of identity ambiguity between being a physician and a leader. Second, the dilemma of balancing the expected commitment to clinical patient work by various stakeholders and that of physician leadership work. Third, the dilemma of being able to compensate for leadership sk…

Epävarmuuden siedätyshoitoa opintojen osana

Consolidation by Game-Playing: a Gamesmanship Inquiry into Forestry Industry

If one takes a flight in Finland from the country’s capital, Helsinki, for instance, north to Rovaniemi, the ‘Gateway to Lapland’, the scenery below consists typically of lakes, rivers and marshland, but most of all of forests. Wood in all its forms has been for centuries the core of the national character as well as the locomotive of business in Finland. Over the years the Finns have come to understand that the forest sector is perhaps the strongest guarantor of the Finnish economy and identity. The old saying ‘Finland earns its living from its forests’ can even be interpreted to mean ‘what is good for the forest sector is good for Finland’. Lilja, Tainio and Rasanen (1991a) encapsulated t…

Arvot suoritusmittareiden aiheuttamien ohjausjännitteiden hallinnassa suuressa osuustoiminnallisessa organisaatiossa

Efficiency vs. values : Institutional logics, situated rationality, and performance measurement in a cooperative bank

This qualitative case study explores how situated rationality is achieved and maintained between two coexisting institutional logics, ‘global’ financial efficiency and ‘local’ customer-owners, around a performance measurement system in a large cooperative bank. We focus especially on the relationship between financial performance measures and softer, cooperative and communal organisational values. The results highlight that communal values may be effectively used to smooth and manage managerial contradictions; thus, situated rationality for operations can be achieved and maintained. This may also explain the resilience and success of communal values and cooperatively formed organisations in…

Strategy implementation as fantasising – becoming the leading bank

In this empirical case study we explore the fantasy nature of strategy work and propose fantasising as a framework contributing to the nascent literature dealing with the previously overlooked fantasy nature of strategy. More specifically, our interest is on examining how the meaning of official strategy gets constructed as it is being implemented, as well as and how and why the perceptions may evolve during implementation. Our data consists of official strategy documents and interviews from Finland's largest financial services group and its largest unit. The interviews cover all organisational levels, enabling us to reveal the variations of perceptions of strategy as it is being implemente…

Ristivetoa : tapaustutkimus suomalaisesta koneenrakennusverkostosta

Menestyvien tuotteiden kehittäminen edellyttää innovaatioita ja niiden hyödyntämistä. Tämän esitutkimuksen pyrkimyksenä oli hahmottaa metsäklusterin koneenrakennuksen liiketoimintaverkostoja ja toiminnan luonnetta veturiyrityksen, teknologiayritysten ja pääomasijoittajien näkökulmasta. Tunnistimme haastatteluiden avulla 3 haastavaa ongelmakohtaa, jotka tulisi ratkaista verkoston innovatiivisuuden kehittämiseksi: 1) immateriaalisista oikeuksista sopiminen verkoston jäsenten kesken, 2) rajanveto partneruuden ja kilpailutuksen välillä, sekä 3) keinot joilla edesautetaan järjestelmätoimittajia sitoutumaan ja toisaalta säilyttämään riippumattomuuden päämiehestään. Ehdotamme jatkotutkimushankkeen…

Henkilöstöjohtamisen opetuksen kehityspolku JSBE:ssä : salista peliin

Big data and HR analytics in the digital era

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the HR function takes advantage of human resource analytics (HRA), including big data (BD), and discuss factors hindering HRA and data utilization. Moreover, the authors discuss the implications of the HRA-induced role transformation of the human resource (HR) function. Design/methodology/approach This is an explorative case study based on qualitative interviews in nine leading Finnish companies. Findings The results indicate that both technical and human obstacles, operating with very basic HR processes and traditional information systems and poor data quality, hinder adoption of advanced HRA. This, combined with lacking skills in analy…